disputants,
I by no means ignore the grievance under which some of those disputants
have suffered. The ever-memorable majority of 1906 was won, not
wholly by Tariff Reform or Chinese Labour, but to a great extent
by the righteous indignation of Nonconformity at the injury which
had been inflicted on it by the Tory Education Acts. There were
Passive Resisters in those days, as there are Conscientious Objectors
now; and they made their grievance felt when the time for voting
came. The Liberal Government, in spite of its immense victory at
the polls, scored a fourfold failure in its attempts to redress
that grievance, and it remains unredressed to this hour. Not that I
admired the Liberal Education Bills. My own doctrine on the matter
was expressed by my friend Arthur Stanton, who said in 1906: "I
think National and Compulsory Education must be secular, and with
facilities for the denominations to add their particular tenets. My
objection to this Bill" (Mr. Birrell's Bill) "is that it subsidizes
undenominationalism." And again in 1909, when another of our Liberal
practitioners was handling the subject: "I object altogether to
the State teaching religion. I would have it teach secular matters
only, and leave the religious teaching entirely to the clergy,
who should undertake it at their own expense. This is the only
fair plan--fair to all. The State gives, and pays for, religious
teaching which I do not regard as being worth anything at all. It
is worse than useless. Real religious teaching can only be given
by the Church, and when Christ told us to go and teach, He did
not mean mathematics and geography."

That was, and is, my doctrine on religious education; but in politics
we must take things as they are, and must not postpone practicable
reforms because we cannot as yet attain an ideal system. So Mr.
Fisher, wisely as I think, has left the religious question on one
side, and has proposed a series of reforms which will fit equally
well the one-sided system which still oppresses Nonconformists
and the simply equitable plan to which I, as a lover of religious
freedom, aspire.

I see that some of Mr. Fisher's critics say: "This is not a great
Bill." Perhaps not, but it is a good Bill; and, as Lord Morley
observes, "that fatal French saying about small reforms being the
worst enemies of great reforms is, in the sense in which it is
commonly used, a formula of social ruin." Enlarging on this theme,
Lord Morley points out